Polymath, visionary and indefatigable change agent. Founder of Polymathica, a global community of intellectual sophistication, The Polymathic Institute, which promotes polymathic research, education, careers and lifestyles, The Polymath, a weekly PDF magazine of erudite analysis and commentary. Pages describe my original work.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

The Polymath

The Polymath will be a weekly .pdf magazine of news, analysis and commentary for an erudite readership. It will contain feature articles on world affairs, economics, business, investing, science, technology and the arts.

We will do a crowdfunding, probably for $1,000,000 with the proceeds used primarily to build readership. I know from years of experience that with complete awareness we will be about 4.5 million subscribers. The crowfunding will be sufficient to build a 1.5 million subscribers and should be sufficient to create organic growth.

The key to success for The Polymath is to appeal to the upper 5% of the population in intellectual sophistication that, per research by D.K. Simonton, is currently substantially underserved. In other words, our articles need to be well researched, well considered and say something unlike what is flooding the press. If it is the same thing, just said differently, we shouldn't publish it.

For example, with regard to the Crimea situation, I said,

"In 1238 Crimea was taken from the Rus' and Byzantium by the Golden Horde. Crimeans were not asked if they wanted to be part of the Mongol Empire; they were told.

In 1475, Crimea became part of the Ottoman Empire. They were not asked; they were told.

In 1783, Crimea became part of the Russian Empire. Again, they were not asked; they were told.

In 1954, Crimea was made part of Ukraine. They were not asked; they were told.

Finally in 2014, they were asked. They decided that they want to be part of Russia. NO, NO, NO!! protests U.S. and EU. It is illegal. Yet one more time, they insist, the people of Crimea must be told."This is the kind of material we need in The Polymath. It is correct, it is cogent and it is different. It raises a question that will surface again and again over the next few years. Should the community of nations make laws without the consent of national minorities that prohibit that national minority from enjoying self determination? Are the interests of Russia, the E.U. and the U.S. of greater merit than the interests of the people who actually live in the affected territory?According to D.K. Simonton, The Polymath superstar authors will have IQs around 150 (+/- 10). We won't be asking for an IQ test result; the quality of the work is the driving factor. However, clearly, it will take some work to find our article and column writers. So, we will be looking for five or so 'Editors' whose job is to go out and find such authors, help them meet the editorial standards of The Polymath and keep them working.The Polymath will be ad supported. In other words, people will get a 128 page weekly magazine in their inbox at no cost and will also be able to access archived articles. That is a lot of advertising. Our objective is to have all the advertisers be Members of the Polymathica Enterprise Network with adverstising placed on an affiliate basis. That is another project I will be posting on soon. We will need 'Monetizers' to go out and find appropriate advertising. They will also be expected to place the advertising properly so that the right readers are seeing the correct ads.This is a shared enterprise. What that means is that everyone gets a piece of the revenue and is responsible for their own budget, keeping the excess as their profits. Authors will receive 35%, Editors will receive 10%, Monetizers will receive 10% and 15% will be retained for Administration. The Polymathic Institute will have 80% of the 30% profit or 24% and the crowdfunders will have 20% of the 30% or 6%. The Polymathic Institute will use its proceeds to promote polymathic research, education, careers and lifestyles. At the outset, the majority will probably be used to crowdfund enterprises in the Polymathica Enterprise Network.Total Revenue is forecast at 1.5 million subscribers X 128 pages per week X 52 issues per week X ½¢ per page = $49,920,000. At this level, authors will receive $2,500 per page while Editors and Monetizers will receive $750 per page each. A five page article will provide authors with $12,500, Editors and Monetizers with $3,750. Clearly, Editors and Monetizers will have a reasonable opportunity to earn mid six figure USD annual income placing just three articles per week. Of course, this is only about 1/3 of what I anticipate to be our mature distribution.We will have a tab in Polymathica.com for The Polymath which will archive all articles. Revenue from affiliate ads there will be shared in the same proportion as the .pdf magazine. The articles will have the facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc. 'share' buttons as well as a 'subscribe' box. Of course, we will work to achieve SEO. Because the articles, in order to be accepted for publication, must bring a new and intellectually rigorous perspective to the issue, the should be highly shareable within our market.We absolutely need this to hit fast, which means crowdfunding, editors, authors and monetizers must grow and succeed quickly. If you want to be an Editor, go get an article. If you want to be an Author, write a feature article. If you want to be a monetizer, go find advertising (affiliate preferred), that is appropriate for a refined and erudite audience. We need someone who will spearhead crowdfunding. We also need an Editor-in-Chief, a layout artist and a tech-type to maintain our subscriber list and e-mail functionality. You each will receive a portion of the 15% administrative share. Contact me at DoctorPolymath@yahoo.com if you are interested in becoming involved.

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Michael W. Ferguson

Polymath, visionary and change agent

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The Polymath is the official publication of Polymathica, a global community of refinement and erudition, and The Polymathic Institute, which promotes polymathic research, education, careers and lifestyles. It also promotes projects designed to be remediation for the Inappropriately Excluded.

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Register at http://polymathica.network-maker.com and join me at 'Remediation for the Inappropriately Excluded' group. I am aggressively building a series of professionally curated discussion groups and related fora.

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Polymathican Blogs

Remediation Resources

Experiment.com will be a useful tool in our goal of remediation for Polymaths and the inappropriately excluded. While this site provides a good format for funding independent research, it is not going to provide an adequate supply of funders. However, by utilizing our contacts in Polymathica we can move forward in the Polymathic Institute's goal to promote polymathic research and secondarily, polymathic careers.

Fundable.com for many this will be the best crowdfunding platform for equity offerings. Their charge is $179 per month. Of course, the payment processing fee of 3.2% to 3.7% is extra. Still, a three month, $500,000 offering will only have a total cost of around $18,000 to $20,000 far below the 9% to 10% of most platforms. Of course, like all equity funding sites, you will need to bring most of the investors yourself. That is where P.E.N. comes in.

My Quotes

From time to time I post something that deserves more than ephemeral exposure. When that happens, I post it here.

Career Advice

You can't earn a living telling people how things are or how they will be. You earn a living by feeding their confirmation bias. That is not a career to which one should aspire.

On Fools

I really have attempted to abide by the apostolic admonition to suffer fools gladly. However, in the end, there were just too many of them.

On Being Human

I was asked, 'In what way does human intellect differ from other animals in kind and not just in degree?' I answered, 'Only humans can ask that question.'

On Opinions

Those who say, 'That's just my opinion' rarely mean it. Those who say, 'That's just your opinion' almost always do.

IQ in Perspective

A guy once quoted to me, 'When a wise man points at a star the fool looks at his finger.'
I replied, 'True. But so does my dog and I love her dearly.
Let's not overly weigh intelligence in our assessments of worth.'

The First Principle of Information Age Political Philosophy

No person should be required to live under a body of laws, programs and policies that they consider to be fundamentally unjust.

How Markets Really Work

Perception is reality...until reality steps in and says, 'OK, enough!!!'

On the Mainstream News

Pitting a Left Wing lunatic against a Right Wing lunatic gets you a whole lot of pyrotechnics but absolutely no useful insights. You can't average them and find yourself in a defensible middle.

Knowing the Future

There has been no time in the last 200 years when the world thirty years hence was generally believable. Therefore, if someone tells you what the world will be like in thirty years and it seems reasonable, history says that they are wrong.

Make a Difference

I am interested in what you have done, what you are doing and what you will do. I am supremely indifferent to what you could do, but won't. Consequently, I don't care very much about your IQ.